The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of navigation mode (passive versus active) on the virtual/real transfer of spatial learning, according to viewpoint displacement (ground: 1？m 75 versus aerial: 4？m) and as a function of the recall tasks used. We hypothesize that active navigation during learning can enhance performances when route strategy is favored by egocentric match between learning (ground-level viewpoint) and recall (egocentric frame-based tasks). Sixty-four subjects (32 men and 32 women) participated in the experiment. Spatial learning consisted of route learning in a virtual district (four conditions: passive/ground, passive/aerial, active/ground, or active/aerial), evaluated by three tasks: wayfinding, sketch-mapping, and picture-sorting. In the wayfinding task, subjects who were assigned the ground-level viewpoint in the virtual environment (VE) performed better than those with the aerial-level viewpoint, especially in combination with active navigation. In the sketch-mapping task, aerial-level learning in the VE resulted in better performance than the ground-level condition, while active navigation was only beneficial in the ground-level condition. The best performance in the picture-sorting task was obtained with the ground-level viewpoint, especially with active navigation. This study confirmed the expected results that the benefit of active navigation was linked with egocentric frame-based situations. 1. Introduction Spatial cognition refers to the cognitive processes associated with the development of a comprehensive understanding of a spatial environment and the utilization of that knowledge for various purposes. Large-scale spatial cognition provides procedural knowledge and/or configurational knowledge about the environment which results from the acquisition of spatial knowledge levels [1, 2]: landmarks, route, and survey knowledge of the environment. The third level would allow the development of a cognitive map that contains configurational information. This L-R-S model (landmarks, route, and survey) has been subsequently described in a “seri-parallel” form, in which the initiation of the construction of configurational knowledge may start independently from the completion of subordinate levels [3, 4]. In everyday life navigation, individuals use two types of strategies: route strategy and survey strategy. Each strategy is based on the reference frame of the internal representations developed during navigation, that is, egocentric representation (body-centered) in route strategy and allocentric representation
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